Bright lights slow dementia patients’ decline

Brightening the lights for elderly people with dementia, in combination with a daily dose of the sleep hormone melatonin, improved their mood, sleep, and overall well-being, Dutch researchers said on Tuesday.

"The strong point of our findings was that effects were so prominent over a wide range of measurements of different aspects of functioning, suggesting a very strong improvement of the quality of life," said Eus van Someren of the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, in Amsterdam.